Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than providing a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. Non-hospice palliative care is not dependent on prognosis and is offered in conjunction with curative and all other appropriate forms of medical treatment. It should not be confused with hospice care which delivers palliative care to those at the end of life. In the UK this distinction is not operative; hospices and non hospice based palliative care teams both provide care to those with life limiting illness at any stage of their disease. (See "History" and "Practice" below for additional information on hospice and hospice care.)

Concept

The term "palliative care" may be used generally to refer to any care that alleviates symptoms, even if there is hope of a cure by other means; thus, a recent WHO statement[1] calls palliative care "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness." In some cases, palliative treatments may be used to alleviate the side effects of curative treatments, such as relieving the nausea associated with chemotherapy.

The term "palliative care" is increasingly used with regard to diseases other than cancer, such as chronic, progressive pulmonary disorders, renal disease, chronic heart failure or progressive neurological conditions. In addition, the rapidly-growing field of pediatric palliative care has clearly shown the need for services geared specifically for children with serious illness.

Though the concept of palliative care is not new, most physicians have traditionally concentrated on aggressively trying to cure patients. Available treatments for alleviation of symptoms were viewed as hazardous and seen as inviting addiction and other unwanted side effects.[2].

Over the past twenty years, the focus on a patient's quality of life has gained substantial ground. Today in the United States, 55% of U.S. hospitals with over 100 beds offer a palliative care program [3] and nearly one-fifth of community hospitals have palliative care programs.[4] A relatively recent development is the concept of a dedicated health care team that is entirely geared toward palliative treatment, called a palliative care team.